Blake came back out about an hour later and got a small cooler out of his truck.
“Mind if I sit out here and eat my lunch?” he asked, already parking himself on her front steps and stretching his long legs out in front of him.
She did, but she didn’t want to offend him by suggesting he go somewhere else to eat. Grimacing, she looked back at her computer and tried to concentrate on her work.
“Sure is amazing,” she heard Blake mumble a few minutes later. She darted him a quick glance and then returned to her screen.
“Yep,” he mused, “no telling what modern technology will think of next.”
Gabriella closed her eyes a second and tamped down her frustration. Normally, she would welcome a distraction from work, but this distraction reminded her too much of another distraction she had no desire to think about.
Blake pulled a bottle of water out of the cooler and took a long drink.
“Next thing you know we’ll be able to go into a store and buy replacement organs.” He packed up his cooler and stretched his arms up and over his head. “Damn spanking amazing.”
Gab turned away from the computer and looked at him.
“Was there something you wanted to tell me about?” she asked, sure his rambling about technology had some purpose.
“Oh sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Gab arched a brow. “Didn’t you?”
Blake leaned against her porch post. “No. I was just thinking about how amazing technology is today.”
“Yeah,” Gab said, “I sort of got that. So what’s so amazing that you can’t get over?”
“Oh, paternity tests,” he said, pushing away from the post and standing up. “Did you know you can do them yourself now? You can pick one up in a drugstore for thirty bucks and take your own DNA samples.”
Gab’s breathing slowed to a crawl. Both Morrison brothers had recently had a baby. She couldn’t fathom Blake questioning his paternity, let alone doing a test…but what about—
“I thought Justin was pulling my leg when he told me, but it’s true.” Blake looked at her, watching her as if he was waiting to see if she thought he was pulling her leg. That wasn’t what she was waiting for. She was waiting to hear why Justin had been talking to his brother about paternity tests.
Blake walked down the steps and started for his truck.
“Blake,” Gab said in a thin voice. “How do you know it’s true? That…that you can do your own test?” That wasn’t what she wanted to know, but asking what she did want to know would be too obvious.
“Because Justin got one,” he told her, as if her question was redundant. “That’s how he found out he wasn’t the father of Brin’s baby.”
“It was just a drugstore test,” Gab said, her heart barely beating. “It might have been wrong.”
“Nope,” Blake said confidently. “Test was conclusive, and when he presented the report to Brin, she confirmed it.”
Gabriella felt her world tilt. Saliva started to build in the back of her throat, and she felt as if she might get sick. If Justin wasn’t the father of Brin’s baby, then the woman had lied to him. She’d tried to manipulate him into marrying her…and Gab had turned her back on him when he needed her to trust him most. She had thought she was doing the right thing. She had made what she thought was the best decision for everyone involved. She had never even given him a chance to explain or listened to what he had tried to tell her. She had thought she was being selfless, but what she’d been was self-righteous. And for what?
Blake went back into the house for a few minutes and then walked outside again.
“The guys are going to start putting the frame up this afternoon. I’ll stop by tomorrow to check in.” He said as he walked to his truck. He gave her a final wave, hopped in, and then drove away.
Gabriella just stood there, staring wordlessly as she watched the dust that had been kicked up by the truck’s tires dissipate. Blake’s revelation had crumbled the walls she had worked so hard to build around her heart the last several weeks, leaving her exposed to the painful knowledge of what she’d given up.
If only she could go back to that morning and do it over again. If only she hadn’t sent him away. If only...
She looked at the pumpkin. It seemed to gawk at her with lopsided mockery, as if to say…you fool.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to stare?” She turned the scoffing jack-o’-lantern’s face around. She already knew what a horrible mistake she’d made.
OVER THE next few days Blake spent most of his time on the job at Gabriella’s. His constant presence began to wear on her to the point she couldn’t concentrate on anything. An hour after he showed up on Thursday, she told him she was going into town for lunch and if anything came up that he needed to talk to her about, he could call on her cell.
The lot behind Mosey’s was full, and she had to look for a parking spot on the street. She found one about a half a block down from Justin’s office. As she approached it, she told herself to just walk quickly by and hoped she wouldn’t run into him in the coming or going.
She darted a glance at the door as she passed by and then stopped and backed up. There was a sign in the window announcing his office was closed and would reopen the following week. Anyone who needed to speak to him before then could reach him at the number listed on the notice.
Gab’s shoulders relaxed, and she felt some of her tension drain away. She didn’t have to worry about running into him; he wasn’t even in town. She reached out and ran her hand lightly over his doorknob. It seemed that by touching something he had touched recently, she might be able to pick up some of his essence. It was foolish and she knew it. She just hadn’t been able to stop herself. She wondered where he’d gone. Was he away on business? A law conference perhaps…or maybe he’d taken some time to get away and celebrate his newfound freedom.
Continuing down the block, she walked slowly, enjoying the warmth of the lazy autumn day. She stopped into The News Junction, one of her favorite shops in town. They sold magazines, a small selection of paperback books, lottery tickets, newspapers, beef jerky, and cheese.
Gabriella had never been able to reconcile the cheese, but it always made her smile when she thought about it. She liked the place because everything about it reminded her of an old-fashioned store. It still had the original wood plank floors, an exposed brick wall, and it smelled like paper…paper that had been around for a while…not musty, but almost. Even the proprietor, for whom she had a soft spot, seemed like a holdover from the past. He was seventy-eight years old and one of the dearest men she’d ever known. His name was Tito. He was Italian and still spoke with the hint of an accent, and every time she went into his shop he offered her a sample of his cheese. Who did that anymore?
After browsing the aisles to pass some time, she picked up a couple of magazines and then went to the counter, where she talked to Tito for a bit and sampled a small slice of Canadian cheddar, before leaving the store and going to Mosey’s to get some lunch. She sat in a booth by the window and leafed through one of her magazines as she ate. When she finished her lunch, she left the diner and walked to Speckles to pick up a couple of pumpkins and a carving kit.
It was just shy of two thirty when Gabriella got home. She had hoped by the time she returned Blake would be gone, but when she pulled into her driveway, she saw his black truck still parked in the front of the house. If he was going to be spending so much time there, the next two months would be as unbearable as the last two. Realistically, she knew she wouldn’t be able to escape into town everyday as she had today, but she’d have to find some way to avoid the man.
Instead of checking in to let the work crew know she was back, Gab went directly into her office and closed the door. She had tried so hard to move on, but it wasn’t working. If she thought there was a chance Justin would welcome her back into his life, she’d be tempted to throw herself at his feet and not give a damn if she looked like a fool in the process.
He had insisted he hadn’t been in love with Brin, but he’d never told Gab he loved her, either. If she told him she loved him, that she’d wanted to start over, he might tell her it was too late. If that happened, she’d be crushed…but she was already crushed, and lonely, and missed him more than she’d imagined possible. So how much worse could it be? If she didn’t tell him how she felt, nothing would change, so either way the result was the same. So why not tell him?
Gabriella leaned backward in her chair and looked up at the ceiling. No answers there. She stood up and paced to the refrigerator which had been temporarily set up on the side wall of the office with the microwave and a George Foreman grill. She pulled a bottle of water out and walked back outside to the porch to wait for her daughter to get home.
The yard was full of leaves, pretty orange and red maple leaves and bright yellow walnut leaves. She didn’t have a rake, and she kind of liked the way the leaves looked scattered all over her lawn displaying their autumn colors, but it probably wasn’t good for the grass. What grass she had.
Blake walked out of the house and told her he would see her tomorrow. She groaned inwardly. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to withstand the constant reminder of Justin…of what she’d thrown away. Her motives had been good, her heart, she’d thought, in the right place, but that hadn’t made ending their relationship any easier. And it was no easier now, especially with his brother serving as a constant reminder of the man.
“Blake, do you really think it’s…” Gabriella trailed off. She was going to ask him if it was necessary for him to check in so often. The crew seemed to know what they were supposed to do, and he must have other jobs that he needed to spend time at. Maybe he was checking so often because she and Delaney were such good friends, and he wanted to make sure everything was perfect. She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea or offend him, though, so she aborted her question.
He turned around halfway down the steps and looked at her. “Do I think it’s what?” he asked, his eyes traveling over her face.
What did he see there, she wondered? Did he know how much she missed his twin? Was he aware of how much his presence unsettled her? He and Justin were extremely close. If anyone knew how Justin felt about her or anything else, it would be Blake. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him.
“Oh nothing,” Gab said, looking away. She cursed her inability to move on with her life. Justin couldn’t be the only man who could fulfill her so completely. But she was afraid he was. She was afraid she’d been offered a once in a lifetime love and had chosen to walk away from it.
When she looked back at Blake, he was still watching her. His beautiful eyes, eyes so much like Justin’s, regarded her with a tenderness she’d never seen there before. It was almost too much for Gab to bear. He felt sorry for her. He probably knew what was on her mind, and he felt sorry for her because he knew Justin didn’t love her. He knew his brother had moved on even though she couldn’t.
“You want to talk about it, sweetheart?” Blake’s voice sounded gentle, almost encouraging. She had never thought Blake was a man of many words, and she was much closer to his wife than she was to him, but she had always recognized an underlying compassion and goodness in him. His offer of an ear touched her, but she didn’t feel right burdening him with her problem, especially when there was nothing he’d be able to do about it.
Gabriella shook her head. “No sense talking about things we can’t have, is there?” She smiled at him, but her heart wasn’t in it. In fact, if she had to keep looking at him and thinking of Justin, she would have to go back to her office because she was already afraid she was on the verge of falling apart.
Blake’s eyes never left hers. “Sometimes,” he said, his tone filled with compassion, “what you’re looking for has been in front of you the whole time. You just need to open your heart to see it.”
His softly spoken words almost undid her, threatening her thin veil of control. A jumble of confused feelings swelled to assail her. Was he trying to tell her Justin still cared about her? Her mind wasn’t sure how to interpret what he said, but her heart wanted to believe there was hope.
She chewed her bottom lip and looked up at him, almost afraid to put any faith in his words for fear he was wrong or she’d misinterpreted them.
“Gabriella,” he said, and it sounded so much like Justin she had to look away for fear Blake would see the raw emotion screaming from her eyes. “There’s something—”
“There’s Chloe’s bus,” Gab said, standing up and brushing her hands down the sides of her jeans as if she could whisk away the torrent of emotion threatening to drown her.
Blake looked over his shoulder and then back at her, an odd shadow of disappointment clouding his expression that confused her. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe he’d been about to tell her not to get her hopes up about Justin. But if so, what had he meant by his other comment?
“Hi, Mom,” Chloe yelled. She waved as she ran up the driveway. “Hi, Justin,” she said when she reached the porch. “How come you haven’t come over for so long?”
“This is Mr. Blake,” Gab said.
Chloe looked up at Blake and scrutinized him with the blatant openness of a child. “Oh,” she said with a frown. “I thought you were Justin.”
“How you doing, kiddo?” Blake got down on his haunches and chucked the girl under her chin. “I swear you get prettier every time I see you.”
Chloe gave him a big toothy grin. “Some day I’m gonna be as pretty as my mom.”
“I’ll just bet you are, darlin’.” Blake ruffled her hair and then stood back up, grinning warmly. He looked back at Gab and said, “And your mom sure is one beautiful woman.”
His unexpected compliment, although appreciated, made her feel uncomfortable, and Gabriella felt the color come to her cheeks. She jerked her gaze away from his to hide her embarrassment and reached down for Chloe’s backpack.
“Do you have any homework tonight?” she asked her daughter in an attempt to find her balance.
Chloe nodded. “And I know, homework before play.”
Gab smiled when she heard Blake’s chuckle and said, “I think she’s trying to tell me something.”
After Blake left, Gab and Chloe sat outside on the front porch while her daughter did her homework. By the time she finished, the remaining work crew was packing up, and Gab breathed a sign of relief that they would soon have their house back to themselves, at least for the rest of the evening.
JUSTIN STOOD at the back door of the house he’d grown up in later that day ruminating over the mistakes he’d made that he would change if he could. He pulled his gaze away from the restless bay and turned back around. Blake sat at the kitchen table in solemn quiet, the copy of the police report documenting their parents’ fatal accident still in his hands.
For more than a decade they thought they had known what happened. Justin wondered if their grief would have been any easier to bear had they known the truth. It seemed almost surreal to discover after so many years that what they had believed was nothing more than their own prejudiced assumptions about a man they barely knew.
“Why do you think we weren’t ever told what really happened?” Blake tossed the report onto the table. “You know how many times I wanted to deck Landfred when I saw him in town? I hated that man. I wanted to make him pay for what he did to Mom and Dad.”
Justin eyed him in silence. He knew exactly how his brother felt. He’d felt the same way, condemning the man on nothing more than local gossip. Remorse filled the cauldron that had been vacated by his anger. How often had he given Landfred a hateful glance or wrongfully shunned the man with cold intent? He shook his head with regret. Gabriella’s father had been a heartbroken, lonely old man whose wife had deserted him and taken away the daughter he loved. He never hurt anyone. He hadn’t deserved to be ostracized, but that’s exactly what he and Blake, and a lot of other people who didn’t understand, had done. They should have been reaching ou
t to him, looking out for him like they did most of their friends and neighbors.
Granted, he’d kept to himself, and his behavior had led most people to think he was a drunk, but that was no excuse. The man could probably have used a friend more than most of them.
“I can understand how it happened.” Justin walked over, pulled out a chair, and joined Blake at the table. “We were barely adults, and we were both pretty devastated when it happened. My guess is, by the time they finished the investigation no one wanted to upset us any more. They probably didn’t see any reason to tell us how it happened. It’s not like it would have brought them back.”
“I suppose.” Blake pushed a hand through his hair and then dropped it to the back of his neck. “Or maybe they assumed we knew.”
“Yeah,” Justin agreed, “there’s always that. And it never crossed my mind to ask the police about the accident report when I was so sure I knew what happened.”
“We both were.” Blake slid him a glance. “Do you think Landfred knew we blamed him?”
“I hope not.” Justin leaned his elbows on the table and regarded his twin. “We need to let this one go, Blake. We didn’t know about the man’s illness, no one did, or there wouldn’t have been so many rumors. We were young, we made a mistake, but we can’t change things now. And based on some of the things Gabriella said, I’ve got a feeling Landfred wouldn’t have wanted us to keep punishing ourselves over it.”
He reached out and put a hand on Blake’s shoulder. “I don’t like knowing I allowed myself to hate a man who didn’t deserve it all this time, but it feels good to finally be able to let go of the anger.”
Blake gave him a crooked grin, their gazes locking. “Yeah.” He reached up and clasped Justin’s arm. “It does.”
Several minutes later Justin went down to the dock with Blake to help him get started on winterizing the power boat. With Kate being so young and Delaney not feeling comfortable taking her out on the water yet, Blake told Justin he might as well get the job done now rather than waiting until November or December when he’d have to freeze his ass off doing it.
Letters to Gabriella Page 26